A Standing Ovation Fixes Everything

Wednesday night Tim and I were laying in bed talking when somehow, our conversation turned to the topic of reality shows. We are faithful Survivor watchers and I was thinking of adding another reality game show to our repertoire. “We should start watching The Amazing Race,” I said.

“I don’t want to watch The Amazing Race,” he replied.

“But, what if I get the chance to be on the show someday?” I said. “I need to know what it’s about.”

A few months ago, at the Amputee Coalition of America Annual Meeting, I was talking to my friend Katy, who also works with me in the prosthetic field for Hanger Prosthetics. In addition to being a patient advocate for lower extremity patients (she was born without both of her legs above her knees), she’s also an amazingly talented actress, having just wrapped a run on stage in Chicago in The Long Red Road, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.


She lives in L.A. and is also a working actress, currently in the process of filming a reality series pilot about her life with her husband, who is a paraplegic and stand up comic. Over cocktails one evening, we were talking about the series and she mentioned she was friends with the one of the producers or executives from The Amazing Race. Sara Reinerstein, the first female, lower extremity amputee Iron Woman was a contestant one year on the show and my other friend, John, an above knee amputee was a finalist in the selection process, but didn’t make it.


“You always see lower extremity patients on these shows,” I said. “Survivor had Chad, The Amazing Race had Sara, but you never see Wingers (aka upper extremity patients). We need some representation!”


“Oh, with your surrogacy story and your arm, I could probably help you get in front of the people at The Amazing Race,” she said. “I couldn’t promise anything, of course, but you’d be great on the show – totally what they’re looking for.”


“Well, maybe when this baby thing is all worked out, we can talk about it,” I said. At that very moment in June, I was in the middle of working the ACA trade show booth in Atlanta, simultaneously miscarrying Max and Bob’s baby.


The stress of traveling, putting on a happy face for the Hanger Booth, the melt down of hormones that comes with the shedding of a pregnancy and the fear of starting over (which I had agreed to do) produced a giant, painful weeping and oozing cold sore in the corner of my lip that left a scar that is still here today.


To say I was a hot mess is an understatement, but this little nugget of potentially being considered a valuable contestant with an interesting story on The Amazing Race as my reward for all I’d put myself through was a little ray of hope in what felt like a dismal place.


“You can’t go on The Amazing Race,” said Tim. “That’s crazy.”


“Are you saying you wouldn’t support me if I was accepted on the show? It’s like thirty days,” I whined. “It’s not that long.”


“Yeah. Thirty days that you’d be away from the boys, thirty days that I wouldn’t get to see them. Sorry, but I’m not in support of that. You’re going to consider leaving the boys for thirty days in the midst of the biggest turmoil you’ve ever experienced with their dad?” he said.


“Well, it wouldn’t be right now,” I said, suddenly feeling very defeated and powerless. I got quiet and thought about it for a while. Even though this is my life to live, that really isn’t true. Though I signed up to carry this baby, I never knew how much it would dominate my life. And then, once you have kids, everything that you thought was "your life" really isn't.


In the last fifteen months of my life, I have done things to my body that I would have never imagined; seventy needles in my ass, countless shots in my belly, estrogen patches and rashes and a stroke-like incident that led to CT Scans, weight gain, fear, pressure, anxiety. I’ve felt like everything is regimented, planned and scripted, in addition to trying to maintain my sanity and not let this affect my family's life and while I lay there fanaticizing about a great escape and a wild adventure, I’m faced with the reality that my life isn’t yet mine. My life belongs to my kids, my guy, my mortgage, college funds, retirement plans, responsibilities etc. And I know now is not the time to be flitting off to other parts of the world, but I also know that there may never be a time that’s right.


“What if I could win a million dollars?” I said.


“You’re ridiculous,” he said, and rolled over and went to sleep.


I laid there for a long time, feeling very trapped, until sleep took me out of my somber state. My alarm went off at 4:00am and I rose to get ready to catch my 6:00am flight to San Jose. I had presentations scheduled for Thursday and Friday to the Niles and Saratoga Rotary Clubs, hoping to get those men and women to open their pocketbooks and assist the Inner Wheel Foundation to fund the Myoelectric Arm Project; a philanthropic project to purchase myoelectric arms for kids whose parents cannot afford them. Hanger partners with this organization and prosthetists volunteer their time to assist. Since 2004, the partnership with Inner Wheel has provided over $600,000.00 worth of prosthetic devices to kids in need.


When I got off the plane in San Jose, I inhaled the “smell of California” in the spring. Every time I arrive in California, I get a little nostalgic about the life I lived there. The scent of the pink jasmine in bloom always takes me back to the days in Rancho Santa Margarita, in a cookie cutter neighborhood called Castile that was my life for so many years.


We were totally living a lie, but we were in a place that was so warm, sunny and inviting that it almost made it bearable. A lot of Southern California is a lie, just look at the collagen puffer fish lips, the gigantic taut tits, the people mortgaged to the hilt to keep up with the neighbors’ and all their plush toys. It’s a different mindset in Orange County. All of our neighbors had incredibly dysfunctional marriages, but the women of our group formed strong survival bonds that we still have today. All of us are divorced and living in different places now, but ironically, I still miss parts of that crazy life; well, just the women and the weather, really.


My presentation Thursday went off without a hitch and the Rotary Members we very surprised when I twisted my left hand off of my forearm and held it in my right. I love getting their attention this way. It blows their minds that I don’t have an arm, which is a perfect segue to why this myoelectric project is so important. It allows kids to be anonymous; to walk into a room and rather than being noticed for what they’re missing, to be seen for who they are.


Thursday night I went to dinner with Tim’s sister Melissa and her boyfriend, Brian, and had a wonderful time. We went to a beautiful little brewery in Los Gatos, and enjoyed the food, the atmosphere and each other’s company. On the ride home, Melissa shared with me her story of how a young girl from Rock Creek, Montana packed up her car and hit the road, knowing that she was destined for bigger things than Rock Creek could offer. I admire her for her courage and independence and thought about this as I faded off to sleep that night.  What would it be like to pack up my car and head south?


Friday morning, I sat outside on the patio by the pool at the Airport Holiday Inn and continued thinking. “If I could,” I thought, “I’d head out to someplace warmer.” The “stuck feeling” was becoming oppressive, as I thought more about how my life really isn’t my own. Just then, I got a text from Max. “We put $300 into your account, but I think we might owe you more. How are you feeling?”


I began my reply, “Thanks. I think you’ll owe more but we’ll figure it out Friday. I got another bill from Inland Imaging. I feel like I’m on a runaway train speeding toward a mid-life crisis.” Send.


The phone rings, “What’s going on?” he asks. “I’m just on my way to Starbucks to get a piece of pumpkin bread.”


And so I invite him to my pity party and give him a pointy party hat with the elastic rubber band strap that pulls all your little chin hairs out as it rolls along the underside of your face. I hand him a Woe is Me balloon and offer up all kinds of venom spitting from my tongue. “My life isn’t really my life,” I say. “Seriously, dude, once you have kids, it’s over. Forget about making decisions for yourself, forget about freedom, forget about choice. It’s over once this kid gets here.”


“It seems like that now, I’m sure, but it’ll get better,” he says. His optimism drives me crazy sometimes, especially when I’m in the throws of a full fledged Debbie Downer moment.


“I know. Listen, if I were you, I’d buy a whole pumpkin loaf and go park on the side of the road and just down it. That would be irresponsible and you should capitalize on these opportunities to be irresponsible before everything about you belongs to somebody else – mortgage payments, car payments, overwhelming responsibilities of providing for a child. It would behoove you to start liquidating and downsizing now, before this kid gets here. It’s gonna fall through those frickin’ stairs at your house.”


Stunned silence. Which makes us both crack up. We begin the tirade of doomsday scenarios, each one-upping the other’s and I am crying with laughter over how incredibly stupid I’m being. Of course I can’t run off and do what I want right this moment. I was getting all pissed off over a game show that I haven’t been offered a spot on – whose producers don’t know I exist. (Yet.)


I’m fat, pregnant, hormonal, feeling like I need a vacation or an escape, feeling like I need a HUGE freakin’ vodka martini, but after talking to Max and laughing til my sides hurt, I realize how grateful I am to be stuck in this moment. I love that guy, I love my guy, I love my kids, my family, my friends – I am truly blessed – Amazing Race or not.


Hell, I am in an amazing race right now. I have no idea what the finish line looks like or where it is, but I know all of the people who will be there when I arrive. I don’t need a million bucks or sunny, sweet smelling California. I just need them.


Later that afternoon, concluding my presentation to sixty or so Rotarians, I got a standing ovation. Looking around the room at all of those smiling, encouraging people who were clapping for me I thought, “I’m really so lucky.” Afterwards, a frail, hunched over man, supported by a walker, shuffled up to me to shake my hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been coming to these weekly meetings for years and your presentation was the very best that I have seen.”


With genuine gratitude, I placed my hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes that held years of experience and stories of his own. “Thank you for that, Sir. That means so much to me. You have no idea. Thank you.” He nodded, touched the top of my hand, smiled, then reached for the handles on his walker to make his way out of the room.


At the airport, I texted Max. “There is nothing that a standing ovation won’t cure” was all I wrote.


“How did you know I was standing up and clapping for you right now?” he replied.  This made me smile.


“Because you always are,” I thought to myself.